


Fish

by eledhwenlin



Category: due South
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-11
Updated: 2007-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:10:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eledhwenlin/pseuds/eledhwenlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renfield's afraid of fish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fish

**Author's Note:**

> For lipstickcat: Turnbull with fish.

Each year his father takes him to their summer cabin out in the woods, far away from any city. Renfield likes it out there, the quiet and harmony. At home his mother would be nagging him to not get his clothes dirty, to not run too fast and to not tease his sister. But here's a man's world, only his father and he, and they stand in the nearby river, fishing and hunting for their lunch and dinner and not talking much.

Renfield thinks that he'd like to live here all year round. His father only laughs, when he tells him so.

Today they're fishing again. Renfield likes to look at the water quickly flowing past and around him, at the white foam where it hits the shingles. The bodies of fish can be seen fleetingly, just a fin here or there.

Then he sees one right in the middle of the river -- a large specimen, a salmon, he thinks, although he can't be sure at that distance. He forgets all about his father's warnings, about how the stones are slippery and treacherous, that there's only a safe foothold at the strand. He must get a closer look at that fish. When the stones shift under his feet, he notices it too late and then he's falling and everything grows dark ...

He will wake up later, trenched and cold, and his father will be squatting next to him, panicking and almost crying. He will want to ask what happened (his father is a strong man and he's never seen him crying), but his throat will be closed up and his entire chest will hurt. Later, in the hospital, he will overhear "concussion" and "stopped breathing", but it will mean nothing to him.

Only when they will return to home and his mother won't nag him about his clothes anymore and he won't be allowed to run for the longest time and when he will not be able to remember his sister's name, only then he will realise.

He's been afraid of fish ever since.  



End file.
